Planning Deaths For Zombies
by Therm
Summary: Chapter four now up! The Team are stranded in a mall, surrounded by zombies 'Dawn of the dead' style. The team need all their survival skills to, erm, survive. Now they've discovered Decker at the Mall, will BA ever get his shirt? The saga continues!
1. Chapter One

Planning deaths for zombies

Author's note: Okay, this was a plot bunny that just wasn't going away, but it's kinda weird. I love the original 'Dawn of the dead' movie and it's about four people holed up in a mall, whilst zombies have taken over. I just couldn't help but wonder what would happen if the team were there instead. This is the conclusion, but it's very much a spoof, rather than anything resembeling serious.

This is the second time I've posted this fic so if it seems familiar, that's why. Thanks go to Viskey and Pheral for betaing it for me and to JFM for being my only reviewer last time it was posted.

Chapter One

It started out as an ordinary day, but then most days do. Especially ordinary ones.

Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith was on location shooting scenes for his latest movie, 'Aquamaniac IV: The Aq is back' when he first saw one of the living dead although at the time he'd assumed it was just another of the drunken crew turning up for work.

It wasn't until the 'drunk' grabbed a cameraman, ripped a chunk of his throat out and started eating it, that Hannibal's special forces training kicked in and alerted him that something was not quite right.

Upon returning to his trailor, he immediately picked up the phone, dialed a familiar number and knew action would be instant. Within 10 minutes, they were there.

He handed over 7.50 and tucked into a large ham and pineapple pizza.

Once finished, he decided that he'd better give the rest of the team a call and let them know what was happening.

He called up Face first, interrupting a liaison between the lieutenant and a companion. They had all meet Face's new friend Sandy and Face had confided in them how he felt a bond between them that he'd never felt with a girl before.

None of them could wanted to tell him that Sandy was a transvestite. It was something he'd have to find out for himself.

He told Face to call the others and said for them to meet outside the VA, ASAP.

It didn't take long to get there, mainly as a narrative of Hannibal driving would be boring, and soon the team was united in the very distinctive black and gray van with red detail, that nearly always seemed to go undetected.

Hannibal described what he'd seen, the drunken crew member, the unprovoked attack and the hideous violence.

The team were silently very sympathetic, but displayed little of the emotion other than a few knowing looks not wanting their macho image to be ruined by displaying real emotions. They were soldiers, damn it!

They could see the carnage these flesh eating monsters were causing. In front of them one shuffled along and did nothing. God, what could they do to escape the horrors?

Murdock's strange sixth sense told him they'd find an answer to their problems if they took a left at the next turning. His instincts were right, as before them was a unsupervised helicopter, fully loaded with fuel. What are the chances of that happening!

BA told them he'd follow in the van, as firstly, he'd never leave his van. And secondly, he'd never fly, especially not with Murdock.

The rest of them rolled their eyes, certain he was given the same script week after week, and nodded in agreement.

Before he could leave, Hannibal pulled out a glass of freshly chilled milk, saying they should have one last drink, just for luck, before they went their separate ways. He watched as BA's body fell to the ground and guessed that they should have caught him and not let him land in the pool of blood on the floor.

They got him on the helicopter and headed up. They flew aimlessly in one direction, not able to come up with a better plan.

It was after nearly 8 hours of continuous flight that Hannibal spotted the huge building. He woke Face and Murdock up, which worried him as Murdock should have been flying, and told them to take a look.

Fortunately, the mall was equipped with a heli-pad too. Hannibal and Face jumped out, leaving Murdock to wonder why they didn't wait until he landed before doing so, and checked around.

The car park was full, not unusual for this time of day at the weekend.

Looking in through a sky light revealed that the zombies were only on the first floor, there were none on the second floor. Either they couldn't climb stairs, the lifts were broken, or they hadn't finished browsing downstairs yet.

They found a small room that was cut off from the rest of the mall, and broke in. They used the still unconscious BA as a mat to land on.

Hannibal told Murdock to get some sleep, whilst he and Face smoked some cigars and looked fantastically moody in the shadows of the room.

Once they were all well rested, they decided to check out the mall and all the zombies in it. By this time, BA had also woken up and vowed to get revenge on them all. His favorite top was ruined and blood was so hard to get out once it had dried.

To get to the mall they had to go past boiler rooms and such and they found a small room which housed all the electrics, plans for the mall and also some large sets of keys to open all the doors of various stores. Lucky really that they had just been left out in plain sight and put away properly.

Face spotted a panel that had switches to turn on various power points. "Hey, how about some music to cover any noise we make?" He asked, wondering why the words were vaguely familiar.

Hannibal looked round to the lieutenant and studied the various switches. "Might as well have power on everything, you never know when we might need it." He said, also plagued by the familiar speech. He shrugged it off and went back to looking over the plans in front of him for no reason other than it made him look like he knew what he was doing.

"Wait a minute." Murdock said before Face touched the switches. "Are you sure we want power on everything. I mean for a start, the tannoy, how annoying?"

"Yeah, and what about the escalators, there were none of those suckers on the second floor and if you turn the power on the escalators they'd be up in no time." BA said. The others were curious as to how he knew there were no zombies on the second floor, as he'd been unconscious at the time, but let it go.

"Of course we need power on everything, guys. If the zombies can't climb stairs they won't be able to get on the escalators." Hannibal reasoned.

"Yeah, and what's the worse than can happen?" Face said, turning on all the switches. Music started to play, that really, really bad mall music. If that didn't drive the zombies away, nothing would.

Once they had everything sorted, they made their way into the mall. They immediately saw that at least 15 zombies had already made their way up the escalators and were wandering all around the place.

"Told ya they'd get up here." BA said in his usual gruff manor.

"We need to stop them from getting up here, if too many of them find their way to the second floor, we'll be over run." Hannibal said, stating the obvious.

"Couldn't we just press the emergency stop button?" Murdock queried.

"Damn it, it's too dangerous! Those things are getting closer all the time, what can we do, out-run them?" Hannibal snapped.

"I could out walk them." Murdock said. Watching the zombies make very little progress.

"Well go on then." Hannibal replied. He hated being challenged.

"Guys, this is madness, just calm down a minute." Face intervened. "We'll think of something, just please, don't do anything stupid, okay?"

"Whattcha talking about, Faceman. Crazy fool could walk over there and turn the escalator off without anything happening." BA said.

"Look, the way I see it is our only other option is to go back where we just came from and turn the escalators off there. Now I don't know about you, but to me that seems pretty drastic." Murdock said.

The others nodded their heads in agreement.

"Okay guys. I'm gonna make a run for it. Try and distract them for me, huh?" Murdock asked.

"Good luck, Captain." Hannibal said, patting Murdock on the shoulder.

"Thanks, Colonel." Murdock turned to Face and pulling his jacket off, he gave it to his friend. "Face..."

"Oh wow, Murdock, you're giving me your jacket! I can't believe it, I've always loved it..." Face was cut off when Murdock pulled it away from the conman

"Hey! You're just holding it for me." Murdock explained. "Okay, here I go."

The zombies were spread far apart now, having slowly ambled around for a bit before noticing the four men standing together. They were pain stakingly slowly making their way to the men.

Murdock carefully moved towards them, whilst the others tried to draw the zombies attention away from the pilot. They shouted a few words at them, but it didn't seem to be working, so they gave up and decided to spit on the zombies on the lower level instead.

Murdock managed to evade the zombies and reached the top of the escalator. He saw three zombies on the contraption heading towards him. He looked around, trying to work out how to stop it. All he could see was a large, bright red button saying 'Emergency stop' on it.

The zombies were getting closer and he sensed the ones behind him closing in too. He took his chances and pressed the one button. The escalator stopped.

Unfortunately, the zombies were already at the top.

Murdock dived out of the way and headed back to the others, but in is haste, his cap fell off right next to several zombies. Murdock hesitated, not wanting to leave his cap behind.

"Murdock, leave it, we'll get another." Hannibal called.

"I can't..." Murdock said, torn over what he should do.

"It's just a cap." Face said.

"It's alright for you, you have a full head of hair." Murdock yelled back.

"Come on, Murdock. They're too close, just get out of there!" Hannibal yelled desperately. "Save yourself and leave it behind."

"We never left any caps behind in Nam!" Murdock shouted. He ran back to the cap, pushing zombies away in his path.

He reached it just as a zombie picked it up. They now both had a hold on it.

Murdock was lucky, the zombie was no longer interested in the blue hat and let it go. He had, however, become more interested in the piece of meat holding onto the over end of the hat. The zombie grabbed hold of Murdock's arm and bit into the pilots forearm.

Murdock yelled in pain, and as the zombie chewed on the piece he'd pulled off, he managed to escape back to the safety of his unit.

"Are you okay, Murdock?" Face asked.

"No, I've just been bitten! That means I'm gonna die, right?" Murdock said.

"Try not to think about it." Hannibal added. Turning to face the others he mouthed the words 'He's dead.' to them.

"Yeah, man, save your strength." BA said inwardly glad. The guy did serious piss him off at times.

Face used a handkerchief BA gave him to tie round the wound. He then placed the jacket over Murdock's shoulders.

"Hey, give me your hat and I'll put it on for you." Face said, smiling kindly at his now infected, dying friend.

"Ah, crap!" Murdock said. "I dropped it."

"You did your best, Cap'n." Hannibal comforted. "Let's go back upstairs and tend to Murdock's wounds. Then we need to kill all the zombies in the mall so we can shop in peace."

"Now that's a plan." Face said.

After Murdock has had his injuries tended to, cleaned and bandaged, the team return to the mall to clear the zombies out. There are even more zombies on the second floor now, the living dead having mastered climbing stairs. Crafty bastards.

The team armed themselves with several guns each and carefully approached the decaying monsters in front of them. They had devised a plan, four minds working together as one finely tuned machine to protect themselves from the zombies. The plan itself was masterful, creative and a work of genius.

BA held onto the former table top as Hannibal nailed the wood into the escalators making it impossible for the zombies to get to the top without amusingly sliding back down to the bottom. Face and Murdock held the zombies at bay, whilst the other men worked. Once completed they admired the handy work.

They were strangely proud of the work they'd done, although it wasn't one of the most technical pieces ever. Knowing that they were now safe on the second floor from the zombies they took a moment to ponder why they'd stood at the bottom of the escalator's to nail the wood to the stairs as they were now trapped on the lower floor with a huge amount of zombies and more pouring in all the time.

"What are we gonna do?" Face asked, freaking out slightly.

"There must be something here we can use to our advantage," Hannibal said scanning the area. "After all, we're special forces trained."

"Oh, look, over there." Murdock said pointing to the shop past a few gross looking zombies. They looked in the direction Murdock pointed to and saw the Army supplies store.

"Good, Murdock," Hannibal said "We can go there and try to figure something out." They all battled there way through the crowd and managed to find the key to the store just before anyone got attacked. Very convenient.

Upon sealing themselves safely in the shop, they started to look for things that they could use. They stacked boxes on ammunition, hand grenades, dynamite and machine guns up in a neat stack in front of the door.

"Well, that should keep those nasty critters at bay until we can find something useful." Hannibal said.

"You know, I saw a film once where something like this happened." Murdock said.

"What happened? How did they escape?" Face asked.

"I dunno. Woody Woodpecker was on the other side and I switched over." Murdock said. He then spotted something that could help them get back to the top floor. He moved over to get a closer look. He smiled and picked up the tent, showing it to the others.

"What are we gonna do with that?" BA asked.

"Let me explain..." Murdock began.

The scene is cut then so we don't hear the actual plan, it makes it more mysterious. We go back as they are ready to put the plan in action.

"Are you sure this is gonna work, Murdock?" Face said.

"Well, let's find out shall we?" Hannibal said. He turned to BA. "Okay, start the fire."

A pile of 'The zombie survival guide' books were piled up and set alight. Murdock and Hannibal took a section of the tent that was cut into a doormat sized section and then held it over the fire.

"Are you ready, Face?" Hannibal asked.

"You're sure about this, Murdock?" He asked, still nervous.

Murdock nodded. "I was told about it while I was in the Air force. Heat rises, it'll lift this bit of material and you up to the second floor where you can throw a rope back down to us. Simple."

They'd all been shocked to hear about heat rising, another military secret that everyone was keeping to themselves. If this information were to get into the wrong hands who knew what could happen.

"Here goes." Face said. He moved back a little and took a run up, jumping onto the material. The material slipped straight from Hannibal and Murdock's hands and the next things they all heard was Face screaming as he was set alight.

In his panic (and forgetting his training to never panic) he stumbled into a pile of zombies who started to bite him.

The others bravely managed to rescue what was left of him and moved from the horde of dead.

"Quick, let's get to the lift." Hannibal said directing his men towards the contraption.

"There's a lift!" Face said.

"Of course. The have to have access for disabled people and parents with prams and pushchairs. I didn't want to use it in case someone who really needed came along. I'd have felt awful." Hannibal explained.

The all climbed in. Taking note of the weight restriction, BA left most of his gold outside. Face was being held up by Murdock and BA.

BA's head hung low, sadly. Sighing deeply, he started to speak. "Look..."

Face cut him off. "It's OK, BA. I'm gonna be fine." Face reassured him.

"No man. My shirt. Look at it! It's completely wrecked now."

Hannibal laid a comforting hand on BA's shoulder. "We'll get you a new shirt, BA, I promise you that."

"How Hannibal. The shop that stocks them is downstairs." He mourned the loss.

"If it's the last thing any of us do, we'll get you a new shirt BA." Hannibal said, looking to his other men to back him up.

Murdock looked at his wounds and at the man next to him, bleeding everywhere. "It probably will be the last thing _we_ do." He whispered to Face.

'The zombie survival guide' is a real book by Max Brooks. It's very good for all zombie enthusiasts and is pretty good in general if you want to find out the best places/weapons/terrain to go to survive a zombie invasion. I sleep a little better at night knowing I have this very handy guide close by.


	2. Treat The Wounded

Treat The Wounded

"So what's the plan?" Murdock asked, clutching his arm and trying not to whimper with the pain.  
Face laid a comfortaing hand on his shoulder. Murdock looked closely at his friend, saw the numerous bite marks that covered him, the pain in his eyes and the charred flesh.  
He had to smile, he was so much more attractive than Face now. He could start getting some of the action.

Hannibal turned to his men,. Seeing them gather comfort from one another was truly touching. He burst out laughing . "Hey BA, look at these two pansies! Oooh, look at us, we've been bitten and it's all painful. Poor us."  
BA sniggered too, they did look funny.

Hannibal cleared his throat, going back to serious mode. "OK, the most important thing is to clear the zombies out of the mall, we can't have any fun until they're gone."

"But how?" BA asked.

"Well, it won't be easy, but I think I've got an idea. We need to build a Tardis."

"A what?"

"Er, a van, the van. We need to re-build it in here and use it to, you know, round up the zombies and get 'em out."

"Did you just make that up?" Face asked.

"Yeah. So whatta ya think." Hannibal pressed.

"Actually, it's one of the better ones." Face said, looking at Murdock and BA who nodded their heads in agreement.

"You know, it's such a shame that we have to re-build the van. If only we could, I don't know, have a special van that we were connected to via a wristwatch or something and it would drive to us."

"Murdock, that's ridiculous! I mean, I know you're insane, but that's pushing the boudaries of plausability." Face mocked, trying not to laugh.

"I guess it understands us and talks back too!" Hannibal added, laughing.

BA stayed quiet. He remember that auction only to well. He'd spent his money on a stereo for the van and had been out bid on the same sort of technological advances Murdock mentioned by some big haired guy, Michael Noon, or something like that. If only they knew that it was possible. But anyway, enough of that.

There was still something much more important here, something that seemed to have been forgotten in all the emergency first aid being given to the wounded.  
"Hannibal. My shirt." BA reminded them all gently. He tried to hide his pain, but it was so hard.

The laughter coming from Face and Hannibal died almost immediately.

Hannibal took out a cigar from thin air and lit it. "BA, I promised you no matter what, I'd get you another shirt and God damn it I will."

BA looked the man in the eye. "Ok, fair enough. As long as you haven't forgotten."

"Hey Hannibal." Murdock said, looking at his leader with his large puppy dog eyes which he'd burrowed from Billy. "Do you think we'll be able to, I don't know, maybe get me a new hat?"

"No chance. Let's face it, you're a goner, no point wasting time keeping you happy."

"Er, Hannibal, you know Murdock's the only way out of here, don't you?" Face reminded the colonel, adding quietly, "At least for you two." He thought back to the poll at the Shrine that had sealed his fate and all those people who had wanted him and Murdock to die.  
Sick bastards, he'd teach them a thing or two!

Hannibal seemed to freeze for a moment. "Of course, I was just joking. By the way Murdock, before you get too sick you wanna show me how to fly that thing?"

"Sure thing, Colonel." Murdock said, brightening up. He loved to fly.

As the plot seems to be going nowhere fast, we'll fast forward a little.  
They talk a little more before heading off to a store so they can  
build the van. They then spot some dodgey old cars and decide to use one of those instead.  
Face being the most wounded of the lot, has to be the one to hotwire the car and sit, groaning in pain as the others get the cool job of driving around in a car in a mall and killing zombies. So much fun (believe me, I've done it)

More boring stuff with the clear out of bodies and a little retail therapy where they steal some money (once a bank robber, always a bank robber, eh!), get some food shopping and then play some games.

By this time Face's condition has deterorated quite badly. The others are doing the best they can to keep things normal.  
Hannibal decides to board up the stairs to where they're hiding so no one can find them, and paints the coridoor from military grey to ocean grey, or is it ocean grey to military grey? Anyway, from one to the other.  
Murdock and BA sit around and argue quite a bit.

So, with the dull bits over, we pick the action back up again.  
The team have cleared out all the bodies and are now looking over the mall, their kingdom, and wearing some rather attractive fur coats. And smoking big cigars.  
The atmosphere is rather bleak, whereas the game Atmosfear is fun (previously video board game, now on DVD!).  
We can still hear the noises the zombies are making, as they try to get back into the mall.  
Damn it's a little creepy!

Face looks towards the main entrance, towards the monsters that have more or less (but more) killed him.  
"What are they?"

"Thet're us, that's all." Hannibal answered. So wise.

"You know, that's really chilling, that. It says so much about the state of the world today and the society we live in but mostly, it makes me think that the human race, as we are today, are more like monsters than these ... these.. zombies."

"No Murdock, I meant they're literally us. We've no budget, that's why we use so much stock footage, we can't affored any thing other than some cardboard cut-outs of us."

"Oh yeah! I can see me!" Murdock said excitedly!

"Er, Hannibal, is that Captain Kirk standing next to you, over by the fountain?"

"Yeah."

"You know, my Grandaddy was a priest in Trinidad. Voodoo. He said; 'When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.'" BA said.

The others all clutch their fur coats a little tighter around themselves.

Sadly as that scene is left behind, we have to come to the first death scene.

Poor Face has been getting in a more serious condition, I just didn't wanna talk about it, it was too hard!  
But now, he's at deaths door.  
The others, having already discussed Face's useless plight to get better, have decided that the best thing they can do is watch their friend suffer needlessly, rather than put him out of his misery.  
Sounds fair enough to me.

"Hannibal, when I go, I'm gonna try not to come back." Face said, laying in his bed surrounded by the bits and pieces he'd picked up from the mall whilst shopping.

"Ssshh, Face, save your energy. Try to get some rest." Hannibal soothed, using a damp cloth on Face's face.

"Really, I'm ...I'm gonna try real hard."

Murdock appeared at the door. " Can you keep it down. Trying to watch TV in here."

"Sorry Captain." Hannibal apologised as Murdock left the room again.

"I don't wanna be walking around like that." Face said, seeming to spit out the word that and the image it triggered.

Hannibal couldn't find the comforting words he was looking for, so instead he just continued to dab Face's head with the cloth.

"Those things, have you seen what most of them are dressed in! And the ... the complextion, it's so pale looking. I can't, I can't end up looking like that." Face said pleading with his C.O to agree with him. "Promise me. Promise me you're stop it if I become one, please?"

"Face..."

Murdock reapperared at the door. "Guys seriously. TV. All we can hear is you two yacking on." Murdock left again.

"I'm gonna try not to come back, I'm gonna try ... not to." Face said, laying his head on Hannibal's arm.

Murdock and BA watched the news report, making them aware of the  
situation that was affecting the world.

"It's gone quiet in there." BA said.

"Yeah, hopefully we'll be able to watch some TV in peace." Murdock  
said.

A gun shot was heard to come from the room.

Just one shot.

The two men looked at each other and slowly and quietly got up.

It could mean only one thing.

They both made their way out the room and down towards the mall.  
There was no way they were helping Hannibal clean up brains from the  
walls.  
Again.

**More notes from the author** First off, quick thank you to my reviewers, JFM, Nash Carter and Kitsunemajin. I appreciate you guys letting me know what you think. Comedies quite hard to get right, you never know if people will read it the same way as you write it and humour is many different things to a lot of people. (I mean, some people think Jo Brand's funny for goodness sake!)

To all the things I've ripped off in this chapter (Knightrider, Dr. Who, Red Dwarf), I'm very, very sorry. They aren't mine and I didn't ask.


	3. What Happens Next?

What happens next?

Having now buried Face and forgotten about him, the others get more and more ridiculous in their greed, bringing TV's, dining sets and alike up to the top part of the mall. Makes you wonder why they didn't just set up a place in one of the large department stores, but hey, this ways gotta be easier, right?

Hannibal has three boxes and hands one to both of his remaining men and keeps one back for himself.

"What's this?" BA asked.

"Gas masks." Hannibal explained.

"Oh right, in case the zombie outbreak's caused by some kinda toxic gas from a failed top secret government experiment." Murdock enthused.

"No. It's just in these small quarters you don't wanna share the same air as another two men who are on a bean diet." Hannibal explained.

"Why is that again? There's loads of other food downstairs. We've taken everything else, why not the food." BA queried.

"Sorry guys, I guess I'm just thinking like I was still at war. I'm rationing us. Never know how long this'll last." Hannibal said.

"Do you think anyone else we knows survived?" Murdock asked suddenly.

"Well, we don't know many people. Most are dead and we hardly ever mention relatives." Hannibal said.

"True. Hey, what about Amy?" BA asked.

"No, there was no Amy. I've never met an Amy in my life. You're thinking of Tawnia." Hannibal said, changing from Amy quite quickly. If they ever found out what he'd done to her...

"Think Tawnia's OK?" BA said, falling for Hannibal's clever trickery.

"Maybe she's out there somewhere, maybe even in a mall like this. Dribbling, shuffling along. Not even able to speak properly." Murdock said somberly.

"Just another zombie." Hannibal said.

"Who said anything about being a zombie?"

"Oh, hey, we best start some of these helicopter lessons before we kill you ... er, I mean, you die." Hannibal said.

"Up to the roof then?"

"Yeah. But I wanna play tennis first." Hannibal mentioned.

"Yeah, Ok, seems reasonable." BA said.

So now, up on the roof, Hannibal's playing some solo tennis. Disaster strikes when he strains his wrist. The others, being very familiar with wrist strains (there's no dirty joke there, anything dirty is in the readers mind), check it over.

"Hannibal's that's a real bad injury." BA said.

"Remember when I strained my wrist real bad that time and couldn't fly for months?"

"No, not really." Hannibal replied, keeping the pained acting suitably low key.

"Oh, well it that's cause I just made it up to share your pain. It's to get to the twist in the next few lines."

"What twist?" BA asked.

"Well, Hannibal's injury is far too severe. I can't allow him to fly. BA, I'll have to teach you to fly. Now that's a twist!"

"I ain't getting' in no plane!" BA said, fiercely. "Not til I get my shirt, anyway."

"Didn't we get it when we went down into the mall during the boring shopping scene earlier?" Hannibal asked, the pain from his injury having completed subsided.

"Ironically, it's the one thing we forgot."

"Ok. Shirt first, flying lessons for BA, and then kill Murdock." Hannibal said, running through the list of things to do.

"Ah man, he's on the jazz." BA said, sharing a groan with Murdock.

* * *

"So, Hannibal, I gotta ask, why have we come down to the mall all tooled up? There's nobody in here." Murdock asked.

"Now, Murdock a good leader will always be prepared."

"I thought that was boy scouts?"

"Yeah, them too. And you know what, they grow up to be good leaders. Anyway, the shop we have to go to is right near the front entrance of the mall, so be careful."

"But we locked the doors." BA mentioned.

"Guys, who's the leader here?" Hannibal said, moaning a little.

"You are." They both said together.

"Right, so come on, lets get this shirt. BA, I want you to wait at the stores entrance. Murdock you need to cover me while I locate the shirt. When I've found it, I'll bring it back to BA. Clear?"

Both men nodded with the instructions they'd been given.

Hannibal carefully made his way past rows and rows of shirts, none of them what he was looking for. A sleeveless pink shirt in size XXXL wasn't easy to come by.

Finally spotting the shirt he was looking for, he searched the rack for the right size. Murdock carefully covered Hannibal, waiting for the unexpected to leap out at him.

Grabbing the shirt off the rack, he and Murdock raced back to the door where BA waited.

"We got it." Hannibal yelled. A smile found it's way to BA's face.

BA took the shirt off the colonel but his face suddenly fell. Murdock picked it up for and handed it back to him.

"What's wrong, BA?" Hannibal asked.

"Look, the seams come un-done. Won't last five minutes, not with how tight I like my shirts." He sighed.

"Triple-XL is tight for you!" Murdock said, amazed.

"Shutup fool! You don't know what I've had to go through. Favorite shirt ruined, covered in all yours and Faces blood. It ain't easy man." BA said, his anger and grief mixed.

"I'm sorry." Murdock said sincerely. "I promise if anything happens to either me or Hannibal, we'll try and you know, bleed away from you."

"Thanks crazy man." BA said. Looking back down at the inadequate shirt in his hands, BA couldn't help but let out another large sigh.

"Right, BA give me the shirt back. I'll go see if I can exchange it."

"Hannibal, we haven't got time for this! The zombies are getting riled up." Murdock said.

"Captain, I promised BA a shirt and I won't fail him now."

Hannibal ran back into the shop, leaving Murdock and BA at the door. Once he found the Exchanges and Refunds desk, he joined the back of the queue and waited to be served.

* * *

Almost twenty minuted later, Hannibal was being tended to.

A large lady stood behind the desk far too superior for someone who was in charge of faulty goods.

"Can I help you, Sir?" she asked, her name tag read Hilda.

"Er, yes. I purchased this for a friend and he's noticed that there's a problem with the seam right here." Hannibal pointed to the area that was affected.

Hilda took the garment and inspected the area closely, almost as though she thought it may disappears if she looked long enough. "Do you have your receipt?" she asked.

"No, I got it after the zombie invasion, so there were no checkouts open."

"So, you haven't paid for this item?" she continued.

"Not technically, but I have the cash right here."

"Save it, mister. I'm calling security." With that, she called security over the tannoy and two large men appeared and took Hannibal to a room.

"Someone will be with you in a minute." Security Guard #1 said.

They both left and Hannibal sat on the hard plastic chair provided for him.

The door opened then and the head of security for Shirts R' Us came in.

Hannibal grimaced.

It was Decker.

TBC.


	4. Filling In The Gaps

Filling In The Gaps  
A/N: A little reference to '28 days later' in this chapter. Also a few washing products are mentioned. I love this story so much. I just wanted to share that with you all.

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"Smith! I can't believe it!" Decker said, his voice as cocky as ever.

"Believe me when I say I'm as shocked as you are." Hannibal replied.

"I see you've been caught red handed, Smith." Decker smiled broadly, proud of his triumph.

"Look, I only did it because one of my men needed a shirt after his was ruined due to the huge amounts of blood splattered on it by his two best friends being mauled to death."

"You think I'm going to fall for that? Since I got this job it's one of the most common excuses I hear."

"What's the most common?" Hannibal asked, he just needed to know.

"Oh, people stealing trousers due to 'a friend' having been, er, probed. You know, alien abduction." Decker explained.

"Ah, yeah that is a good one." Hannibal said, storing it in his mind, that could get him out of a tight spot one day.

"Anyway, back to the action. I know now that you are a thief and this more or less proves that you did indeed rob the bank of Hanoi."

"How?"

"Well, you did it once and you're still doing it, what more proof do you think I need?"

'Darn it!' Hannibal thought to himself. "OK Decker, I'll do a deal with you. Accompany me back to the store entrance where I can hand over this shirt to one of my men, then you've got us. We won't try to escape."

"Give yourself up? That's seems kinda outta character for you, but hey, never look a gift horse in the mouth. Let's go."

"Oh, do you want to handcuff me first?" Hannibal asked.

"Nah, I trust ya." Decker replied. The two men walked back along the row after row of shirts.

"So whatever happened to Captain Crane?"

"Oh, he works for a medical lab now. They do some tests with monkeys and viruses. Not sure what it's all about, but he did say he was traveling to England to test out some Rage thing."

"Oh, so you keep in contact."

"Yeah. Letters at Christmas and Birthdays, you know. The usual."

"Well send him my love next time you write."

"Course. I'll tell him you're well."

"HANNIBAL!" BA yelled, loud enough to wake the dead. Well, if they weren't already awake and eating people that is.

Hannibal and Decker both looked to the store entrance where they saw a large group of zombies gathered. BA was managing to hold them off as the zombies didn't appear to be trying very hard.

"Look Decker, we have to put aside our differences and work together. If we can do that and give this shirt to my man then we can make it out of here. We have a chopper on the roof."

"And a pilot?"

"Er, well if he doesn't die of the zombie injuries from earlier, then yeah."

"Great. I think I can forget the differences we had." Laying a hand of Hannibal's shoulder, Decker looked into the man's eyes. "I never told anyone else, but I always respected you and your men Colonel."

"That means a lot to me, Rod." Hannibal said.

"You know, I was only so hard on you because I cared."

"HANNIBAL!" BA screeched a lot higher then before.

When they reached the scene, Decker was clearly shocked. "Oh my God."

"Horrible, ain't it." BA said, struggling against the zombies.

"I've never seen a shirt to bloodied before. I'm not sure that Daz would work on that. Damn it, Vanish probably wouldn't do the trick either."

"Best get going." They managed to push the zombies back and ran off back towards the lift.

"Oh, where's Murdock?" Hannibal asked.

"He went back to check on the chopper." BA said.

"Oh good. At least he's safe, although that really doesn't make much sense."

The team safely reach the second floor and find Murdock up on the roof, singing a stirring rendition of 'Up on the roof'.

After the applause had died down (the zombies were impressed too!) Murdock reminded BA of the helicopter lessons he needed to take.

Decker pointed out that he was in fact trained to fly a helicopter (a requirement for all security guards) but Hannibal insisted that BA needed to do it.

BA manages to get the helicopter into the air and land safely, so far achieving a better record than Murdock during the whole run of the show, but unfortunately this act has attracted the attention of a biker gang.

Not just a regular biker gang either. Oh no. It just happens to be the teams greatest enemies all having banded together to survive. The Watkins brother and Dougie Kyle to name a few (and because I can't remember many others) are all looking very butch in their leather gear.

The team continue with the lesson, blissfully unaware that they are being watched. Damn fools. After B.A had maybe 5 minutes in the air, he felt confident that his abilities as a pilot were now level with Murdock's and that he'd be able to fly him, Decker and Hannibal to safety should Murdock say, die in the next scene.

Speaking of which, after the team and Decker finish with the flying lesson, they hear a commotion from down in the Mall.

Decker, being head of security, feels that he has to tackle the problem, ready to ban all zombies from the store if they won't keep the racket down, and heads off to sort the problem out.

As they emerge from the lift, they immediately notice that the zombies are now joined by some very familiar looking bikers. Not wanting the bikers to see them, the team hide behind some plants.

Hannibal gets out a pair of binoculars from his pocket and the sight of the leader sends a chill down his spine. Tucking his shirt in to prevent the draft giving him a cold, he takes another quick look.

The others, noticing the scared look playing across Hannibal's features, start to ask questions.

"Whats' wrong?" B.A asks.

"What did you see?" Murdock asked.

"What kind of underwear are you wearing?" Decker adds

Hannibal took a deep breath, carefully looking at B.A. "Take a look at the leader of the bikers."

He looked at Murdock. "We're in a lot of trouble." Finally, to Decker. "I'm not."

"Oh My God!" B.A said.

"I know!" Decker replies.

"No, not that. What I can see."

"Lemme see." Murdock said, snatching the binoculars away from B.A. Peering into them, he looked around until he caught sight of what had spooked his friends so much. "Frankie? Frankie Santana? Oh God, what are we gonna do? He'll make this story ten times worse than it already is!"

"Calm down, Murdock." Hannibal said.

"Give Hannibal a chance to think. He'll come up with a plan." B.A said.

"Okay, I got it! We'll get Face to scam the bikers out of here."

Silence and a lot of awkward seconds pass, as they all look around.

"Er, Face died a few chapters back." Murdock said.

"Oh God, that's right. I forget, it's like he's still here with us sometimes."

"Yeah, it's hard, man. Now think of a better idea." B.A encouraged.

"Ah, this is great! We get that sniper rifle and get Face to take him out."

"God dammit!" B.A said, getting up and walking away, Murdock walked off in a different direction, leaving Hannibal and Decker together.

"Something I said?" Hannibal inquired.

"I wouldn't worry about it. Now, back to your underwear."

TBC.

A/N: Why have a made Decker a sexual predator after Hannibal? Beats me. Zombies do this kinda stuff to you, you know?


End file.
